The total number of votes cast during early voting for Tuesday's election in Harris County is a record, but it's not as big as might have been expected after the huge turnout in the first week.

According to figures released late Friday by Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart's office, 700,216 people showed up to vote early in person for the 2012 general election. That's only 3.2 percent more than the 678,312 who voted early in the November 2008 election.

This year's first-day total on Oct. 22 was 47,903, or 20 percent more than the previous record of 39,201 cast on the first day of early voting four years ago in Harris County.

Although it took until nearly 11 p.m. to process the last voter Friday at Burnett Bayland Community Center in southwest Houston, the overall total of early votes cast in person on this year's last day of early voting in Harris County was just 86,085, or 1.3 percent fewer than 2008's last-day total of 87,285.

Hector DeLeon, spokesman for the county clerk's office, said the reason for the late-night finish was that people wait until the last minute.

"You can have 100 machines but you're still going to have a line," he said. "People wait until the last minute."

That can be seen, DeLeon said, in the daily totals for in-person early voting, which grew from 47,903 the first day to 86,085 the last day.

Despite the fluctuations in turnout, he said, election clerks were prepared to handle the flow.

When 250 to 300 students marched from the University of Houston to the main early voting site downtown on Thursday afternoon, it took the office a little over an hour to process the group, DeLeon said.

"I was amazed," he said. "You have to give credit to the people who came in. They were prepared to vote."

There was a greater difference in ballots returned early by mail: 66,310 this year, or nearly 20 percent more than the 55,446 mail-in ballots returned early in 2008.

This year's grand total of people who voted early in person and the number of ballots returned by mail was 766,526, or 4.4 percent more than the 2008 figure of 733,758.